


looking

by haleyocentrism (feeblehtp)



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: M/M, author had no direction except wow i really love ronan, author is a Huge Fucking Sap, doc is saved on author's computer as "what is this i don't know", excessive pretentiousness and attention to ronan's body, gratuitous comparisons to knives and electricity jesus christ, is this fluff?, utterly plotless
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-19
Updated: 2016-05-19
Packaged: 2018-06-09 12:31:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6907351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feeblehtp/pseuds/haleyocentrism
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adam tries to figure out his feelings for Ronan.</p><p>The problem with Ronan was that he was not a language that lent himself to learning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	looking

**Author's Note:**

> Author fell shamefully quickly in love with Ronan, author has literally no direction other than this, author is a pretentious snob who may be slightly wine-drunk, author's friend called this "a gratuitous love letter to ronan" and the author Agrees,

The way Ronan was looking at him demanded attention. It wasn’t any of the ways Ronan usually looked at people: not his scathing stare, not his indecent disinterest, and not his challenging half-sneer. It was... _looking_. It had weight. Not an unpleasant one, just. Noticeable. Adam wanted to just ask what he was doing, but Ronan never lied, and Adam wasn’t sure if he wanted the truth just yet. Also, if he asked, Ronan might stop, and that wasn’t what he wanted yet either. He just wanted to find out what it _meant_.

 

The problem with Ronan was that he was not a language that lent himself to learning. Adam spent weeks trying to figure out what Ronan _really_ meant in everything he said, replaying every conversation, every phrase, until he fell asleep hearing Ronan’s gravelly voice in his ear. But hours of analysis kept leading him back to it—when Ronan said “You steaming pile of overcooked shit stew,” it meant you were a steaming pile of overcooked shit stew. Because Ronan just. Never lied. It was Gansey who led him to there in the end, because Gansey was a Rosetta stone of all of them, and Ronan was one of his sides.

 

“But how did he look when he said it?” Gansey asked distractedly when Adam pestered him, not fully looking up from his journal. Adam felt like he was asking a teacher a question that the teacher had thought too obvious to cover in class. “Was he—slouching? Were his eyebrows doing the Ronan thing?” As soon as he said it, Adam felt like he’d been unblindfolded—of _course_ Ronan’s language was his eyebrows. Of course it was his slouch. Ronan was not made for sonnets, Ronan was made for kinetic sculptures, for gothic architecture, for Russian ballets. His art was visual, and so was his communication.

 

So Adam started reading that instead. He paid attention to the slow curve of Ronan’s lips when he smiled, and the arrogant cock of his eyebrows when he smirked. He learned the difference in degree of slope to his shoulders, he learned the difference between leaning in and hunching in. As he watched, he saw more as well. There became nothing more familiar to him than the curl of his tattoo, the daring lift of his chin, the dimples on his back, the shape of his collarbone under his muscle shirt, the barely visible freckles on his skin, so light it was like they were breathed there. By some magical being whose job it was to exhale feather-light freckles over the skin of boys who had no business looking so soft. He could recall every detail of the cut of Ronan’s jaw, the brush of his eyelashes, the place where the back of his skull met his neck. He would become the best sketch artist in the world, and he would only be able to draw Ronan. He noticed everything. He noticed the way Ronan’s name felt in his mouth—it started in the back of his throat, building to a hum and rolling around on his tongue. It sounded like a gift.

 

He should have seen it coming. He understood the particular touch of Ronan’s leveled gaze only when he realized he’d been looking back the same way. It was a gaze with intent. So familiar in practice, so foreign to see it directed at himself. He realized it when he caught Ronan looking and neither of them looked away. He realized it when he said, “So,” into the quiet stretched between them, tenuous and heavy as a rope, and Ronan huffed out a soft breath of a laugh, instead of his usual bark. He realized it when Ronan looked at him again, like he had been for months, but now a thrill went up his spine, and Ronan leaned in slowly, his eyes on Adam’s, and paused with a fraction of an inch between his lips, parted almost imperceptibly, and Adam’s. That inscrutable gaze was a black hole, and Adam fell in.

 

Actually kissing Ronan was its own miracle. Adam didn’t have any experience, with it, and _logically_ he thought that Ronan probably didn’t either, so it didn’t make sense for this to feel so natural. His lips, his _lips_ were so soft, and Adam didn’t know why he’d thought they’d be sharp—he’d seen what Ronan was like when left to his own devices. He dreamt up light, and safety, and love. One of Ronan’s hands slid up to his face, his fingers settling behind Adam’s ear, along his neck, his thumb gently moving over his cheekbone. Another little thrill went through him, and he realized that the small noise Ronan made into his mouth was because his own hand had found its way to the back of Ronan’s neck, playing in the short fuzz of Ronan’s buzzcut, his pulse thudding under his skin. Alive, alive, alive, he was a low hum of electricity, and Adam held him in his hands.

 

When they finally broke apart, the wave crested and Adam felt as though he’d just done something incredibly dangerous. Not for his sake, but for Ronan’s. You couldn’t unkiss someone. Unbreak their heart. Ronan wasn’t something you did for fun, on a temporary basis. He touched his fingers to Ronan’s lips, needing to feel them again. Still soft. Ronan held it there, pressed a kiss to Adam’s knuckles, then held them to his cheek. It struck Adam as the most vulnerable thing he could have done, like kissing a weapon before putting it back in your killer’s hands.

 

Later that night, Adam thought about people, and he thought about knives, and he thought that maybe the difference was in how you held them.  

Here is what Adam learned, watching Ronan—he learned how to love him. He was a broad subject—he required hours of study. But Adam never got bored. He learned the weight of a new gaze. Ronan’s stare of intent, while full of promise, had nothing on the look he gave Adam when they were alone. That one held want. The weight of that one could knock a man down. And it did.

 

He learned how to be loved by Ronan. He learned to crave Ronan’s hands on him, at his hips, at his shoulder, at the base of his spine, tangled in his hair. He loved his mouth, and the things it did in the hollow of his throat, around his fingers, and for the things it whispered in his ears. Most of all, he loved to hear Ronan say his name. Often, you could hear the smile in his voice before you saw it, settling around Adam’s name like it belonged there. There was something about being said in a tone like that, that made him want to stay there forever. It made him go a little crazy, when Ronan was saying, _Oh God, Adam, God, Adam._ Praying. Loving Ronan was easier than he’d thought—which didn’t mean it was easy—but being loved by Ronan meant being made to love himself—and that was harder.


End file.
